Thursday, November 9, 2017

Jacob Bos of 5Realms is a Troll and a Liar

Jacob Bos

The Darker Side of Dungeons & Dragons

I'm sure by now, most of you have heard the name "Dungeons & Dragons". On the surface, it's a game of the imagination, governed by strict rules, and played with dice, maps, and miniatures. Under the surface however, lies the allure of the occult, the temptation to escape from reality, and the desire for power.

So begins the first blog post from a blog called "Secret Evils of the World." Both the blog itself and the profile of the blog's author "Thomas Elder" were created yesterday morning from an address in Canada, with no obvious provenance in terms of the blog or the blogger.

It appears to be an 80's style Christian fundie anti-D&D rant. Those red pictures on the side are depictions of hell.

You may find the link here. Or not - it may have been taken down by the time you read this. But here's what it looks like, and below is the profile of "Thomas Elder."

The first post went up at 5:51 AM CST. (The time stamp is the Blogger default, which is PST.)

Yesterday, between the hours of 6 AM and 7 AM, a minor RPG industry guy named Jacob Bos linked to the blog's first post. He put it up in a number of places on Facebook where it received hundreds of comments and many shares, virtually all of which were predictablyhostile to the blog and post, and many of which degenerated into anti-Christian snipes and attacks.Jacob Bos is the person behind the Myd'Realm fantasy setting and 5Realms Publishing, both of which have a presence on DriveThruRPG. Bos is based in Canada.The blog post itself received 150+ comments, all of which, as far as I can tell, were directed there by those Facebook posts and shares.The first comment was posted by Jacob Bos at 6:19 AM, twenty-eight minutes after the anonymous first-time blog from the anonymous profile that was just created launched itself into the ether.

So Bos appears to have found it quite quickly on Tuesday morning.Maybe the Canadian internet isn't that big...Well, Bos wrote it himself of course.And he also inserted himself into the discussion on at least one of the Facebook places where he linked to the post - the group 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - laughing along with those attacking those bigoted and stupid Christian fundies. Here's one comment among many. Notice that he comically tries to direct attention away from the troll thesis:

Bos also linked to the post in Old School Gamers, where I first saw it, his own page, his Myd'Realm and 5Realms Facebook pages and, of all places, the group 80'S CARTOONS, T.V. SHOWS, MOVIES AND TOYS ..what do you remember? He also linked to the post on his Twitter account, which ironically got no likes or retweets. For all I know, he put it up in other places on Facebook and elsewhere.Here are a few of the ways he introduced the post:

Some church.Organized religion.You are all sinners! Repent!LOLHe was a busy man between 6 AM and 7 AM, just minutes after the original blog and profile was created.The "Secret Evils" blog title picture is from the TV series Freaks and Geeks. Curiously, the same picture was posted on the Myd'Realm page a few months ago (with funny "meme" writing placed on it). While it's true that a similar picture has appeared on other sites, each picture has different dimensions and pixel counts, etc., as one might expect. Except for two them - the pictures for Myd'Realm and "Secret Evils" are precisely the same (in terms of dimensions, pixels, etc.).

I originally was taken in by this hoax like most (though perhaps not all) of the commenters. Indeed, as a Christian D&D player I felt it my silly duty to defend the anonymous blogger from the lynch mob, at least partially - "30%" as I put it - as well as pointing out that the whole thing, whatever the merits of the anti-anti-D&D case had partly turned into an anti-Christian thing.I should note that at least two Christian ministers respectfully argued the merits of D&D back at the "Thomas Elder."Bos is of course a troll and a liar. He invented the profile, wrote the blog post and then linked to it either to create clicks and shares for his "setting" and company pages or to gin up anti-Christian hate. I suspect it's both.He allowed it to be shared and re-shared as an alleged example of Christian or Christian fundie hate. See? Christians are stupid and bigoted. They want to control you and stop your fun. They want to condemn people they disagree with to hell. They can't separate fantasy from reality, etc., etc.And they hate our favorite game, D&D.Someone must have been channeling the late Patricia Pulling and Jack Chick...Except. Not.It was Jacob Bos all along.

Oh please. Christianity is not “under attack” by the progressives. I know that’s a sacred cow talking point of the Right, but it’s also complete cow shit. Most progressives are also religious.

Atheists make up only 6% of the U.S. population and generally don’t give a damn about other people’s religious affiliations. This also means that if these 6% were *all* liberals (highly unlikely), that would mean only about 12% of liberals (the mathematical highest possibility) could be atheists.

So what about the other 88%? Are you claiming all 88% of liberals are all somehow against Christianity when statistically most of the are likely Christian?

You statement is as stupid or worse as the blogging troll. At least the troll knows he’s trolling... You actually believe your own BS.

Progressives infiltrate institutions, hollow them out, wear them like a skin suit, and then demand the respect due to the previous incarnation.

There are hundreds of churches around these parts and almost every one of them has turned its back on God. It's sophistry to claim otherwise.

Progressives are the ones who demanded God be removed from the Democrat platform. They booed God three times at their convention. They are the ones demanding Christianity be removed from civic life. They elevate sinful behavior to the level of a sacrament, and accept false gods. They bear false witness, revel in adultery, defame their parents, and most of all hate our Christian nation.

Marty, "progressive" is only a label that obviously can mean different things in different contexts and can be narrowly or widely defined, just like the terms you use - "liberals," "the Right,", heck, even "Atheists" and "Christians."

If you define the terms more precisely, then I would assume that Scott doesn't know what the precise percentages are. Which is not surprising. Neither do I, and neither do you. Polls on these things notoriously fluctuate based upon how those who are polled interpret the labels.

But if you look at the comments on the hoax post, and the comments on the threads the hoaxer started on Facebook, a large number of them can reasonably be categorized as attacks on Christianity (mixed in with defenses of D&D by Christians and so on).

It's obvious that Christianity is under attack by many groups. That cannot be denied. And using "progressive" as a label for them is as good as any. In turn I suppose you could say "progressivism" or "liberalism" is also under-attack (though the attackers might call it a counter-attack). If you want to assign a label to them - "the Right" or whatever, that would be eminently reasonable.

But if labels or terms mean anything ever, then "most progressives are religious" is an extremely dodgy statement. There's a sort of latent resistance to self-identifying as an atheist or an agnostic in this country. That's true. But if you define "religious" in terms, of say, church attendance or Bible (or any religious text) reading or placing importance on religious instruction (of any type), etc., then no, I would not say that most progressives are religious.

Of course, part of the meaning of "progressive" is that one reject the stuff that came before "progress" - like fusty religious traditions. So admittedly it might be partly tautological...

Also, Scott didn't set up a fake profile and blog in order to maliciously slime the other side. It would be nice if you would condemn that instead of snidely trying to lump Scott into it. Or is the ideological battle the only thing that matters, and to hell with the truth?

The desire to 'freak the squares' never fades, even when the squares don't really oblige to be freaked as much.

I'm more confused at the fact the signals of the supposed 'fundie' site are all over the damn place. Protestant style 'repent harlequin!' stuff, and then pictures of a Crusader for some Catholic Deus Vulting,

I guess. I guess its supposedly a non-denominational fundamentalist.

I'd just attribute it to trolling, I've legitimately never heard of Mr. Bos before this post and it seems as if its upped attention towards him.

Or maybe he just didn't have anybody to argue with in Canada so he invented somebody?

Unfortunately, this is all stuff that has come out before. For a good factual account, check out Michael Stackpole's The Pulling Report (available on the net) for information on misguided groups that assaulted the hobby in the past. Those of us who gamed in the early 80s remember all of the slurs that portrayed us, not only as unsocialized nerds playing games in our parents' basement, but as psychopathic devil-worshippers out for human sacrifice. Now, thankfully, no one takes either view entirely seriously these days (aside from a few dark corners of the internet). However, articles like this show that there are a few weirdos that hand on to those beliefs.

Thanks for the post. I'm a huge fan of truth so it's always refreshing to see truth being uncovered. I disagree with you on probably most things politically and religiously but I wanted to thank you for doing the work and pointing out a lie.

That being said, I didn't find the guy's actual blog post even remotely convincing. It felt like a troll job from the get-go. I don't think the early 80s Moral Majority mindset prevails today, in terms of its attacks on pop culture entertainment and hobbies. I don't really fear that my elf games are going into the burn pile of the fascists at the moment.